Note 36 — PRINCE BISMARCK'S CHARACTER.

Bismarck has never had much veneration either for diplomatists or diplomacy. Here is an extract of a letter which he wrote to his wife in 1851 when he was at Frankfort: “In the art of saying nothing and in a great many words, I am making rapid progress. I write many pages of letters which read like leading articles, and if Manteuffel, after perusing them, can tell what they are about, he certainly knows more than I. Every one of us pretends to believe that his colleagues are full of ideas and plans; and yet all the time the whole body of us knows nothing, and each is aware that the others know nothing. No man, not even the most malicious sceptic of a democrat, can believe what charlatanism and big pretence is all this diplomacy.”

It may be remarked, in view of Prince Bismarck's opinions on duelling, that for an affront like that which he offered to the young attaché, a French Admiral, the Bailli de Suffren, was killed by a lieutenant. The affront was offered on the high seas; the subaltern bore it at the time without a murmur, but on returning to France he resigned and sent the admiral a challenge, saying: “You are no longer my superior now. We are both gentlemen and you owe me a reparation.” In Germany this would have been impossible, for the attaché must have belonged either to the Landwehr or the Landsturm, so that the Chancellor as a general of the Landwehr remained always his superior. Thus in military countries one of the chief excuses for duelling—namely, that it enables a man to punish the insolence of office—cannot be urged.